UHND.com - Notre Dame Football, Basketball, & Recruiting

I wish fans valued defense as much as offense.

This was a great sign for Shrews and the program. The players responded to what was obviously an intense nine or ten days of practice. Defense is about effort, thinking, and communication, and the players did that. You'll note that ND's best defensive player, Imes, is one of the least athletically-gifted. Stanford has a red hot scorer at the two-guard spot and Shrews had the guys trap him on every ball screen set for him Shrews took a page from Kelvin Sampson's playbook, and it worked to perfection. When you play defense with the intensity they played with tonight, you demoralize the opponent. Stanford's star was so demoralized by the end of the game that when Stanford cut it to like four in the last minute or so, he passed away the ball rather than shoot it, and his teammate chucked up a 27-footer that had no chance.

Also of note was the appearance of Mark Zackery in the game. I can already see that he is the fastest player on the team, and the fastest in some time. I didn't say quickest. Burton probably still owns that title, but endline to endline, Zackery is a bullet.